The summer months are calm in Brussels but September the new policy season begins, DiCE is continuing to keep up with events and make sure we include the digestive cancer patient voice in EU policy wherever and whenever possible. As many of you know, the main activity to have kept an eye on for 2021 has been the European Parliament Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA). Moving into the second half of the year, along with our work with BECA, we will be representing patients rights on cross-border healthcare and organising a series of unmissable policy events among other activities. Please see below for details.

BECA Update

The European Parliament Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA) has published a draft ‘own-initiative’ report on Strengthening Europe in the fight against cancer – towards a comprehensive and coordinated strategy DiCE is closely monitoring the initiative and is in contact with the relevant parliamentary offices to ensure the patient voice is heard in this draft report.

About BECA

BECA has a mandate to run for this year. Such special committees are set up temporarily to draft reports on topical matters. These ‘own initiative’ committee reports are produced in order to have parliament adopt these texts and in doing so address the other European institutions and bodies, including the Commission, and the national governments. This is to draw attention to specific topics – in this case cancer – and to invoke a response.

Public Consultation on Cross-Border Patient Rights Directive

Recently the European Commission (EC) opened a public consultation to support the evaluation of the Directive on patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare (2011/24/EU). Directives are legal acts of the European Union that direct Member States to achieve a certain result on a matter, without dictating how this is done. DiCE invited all its Members to add their individual voice to the directive. We will report on the results of the consultation and how it may influence National healthcare policy decisions.

We are also busy preparing three policy events for you all in 2021 – please save the date and watch out for the registration links.

September 28: Virtual event on the value of Biosimilars at EU level

October 26: DiCE Masterclass Policy Session ‘Liver Cancer – No Patient Left Behind’

November 30: Second Edition – CRC Screening Summit

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions that could help make our policy work more effective for you and your organisation? Please don’t hesitate to contact us: for Members via our Member Zone or by sending an email to Giulia Barenghi.